About “Meet The Parents”

On this song from The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse, Jay-Z tells a dramatic (semi-autobiographical) street tale with a twist. The moral of the story? Be there for your kids no matter what the circumstance.

Just Blaze has said that the original beat of the song was completely different, but when they mixed the track they changed many elements to avoid sample clearance issues. Blaze had to reproduce the record in just one night because it was very close to the date that the album had to be turned in. Hov was adamant that he wanted ‘Meet the Parents’ on the album because it needed more songs containing the story telling elements he was famous for.

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What have the artists said about the song?

Jay decoded this track in his book Decoded, saying the song functions as a “public service announcement.” He also says:

I never intended “Meet The Parents” to be subtle. In my mind it was a morality play, a PSA for that generation of men who may as well have emptied their guns on their sons when they left their lives.

What else have the artists said about this song?

That was a completely different beat until we mixed it. For whatever reason, they didn’t want to attempt to clear the original. I don’t think there was an issue where they couldn’t clear the sample, but it was too much of a process to get the sample cleared. Jay kept recording, and it was getting close to the date where we had to start turning stuff in. He was adamant about that making the album, because he wanted the story element on the album. He didn’t really have a lot of those, so I reproduced the record in one night.

Is this song autobiographical?

Since Jay didn’t die at the hands of his father in a street altercation, it isn’t a retelling of his life. But there are parallels between Jay’s life and this track. His father did leave him when he was young, but Jay patched things up with him around the time Jay penned this track. Unfortunately, his father Adnis Reeves passed away soon after their meeting.